Effect of Number of Cycles on Surface Roughness of PPS Thrust Bearings Under Rolling Contact Fatigue in Water

Abstract

Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) caused crack propagation, flaking, and wear. We focused on the wear in the present study because in recent years it was found that PPS thrust bearings under the RCF in water caused wear. The RCF test was performed under a thrust load of 2300 N in water to investigate the effect of the number of cycles on surface roughness in detail. We obtained the experimental results that Ra and Rz values decrease with the number of cycles. This means the bottom surface is worn down at the early stage of wear fatigue.